An Interview with Krista Suh, creator of the Pussyhat Project
“It can be just one picture that goes around the world and changes lives.”
Krista Suh is an activist, artist and creator of the Pussyhat Project. The pink knitted cat hats took over the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC. After the unlikely presidential win of Donald Trump, Krista was distraught that a racist, sexist male was the new leader of her country. She decided that attending the women’s march wouldn’t be enough, she had to make a statement.
“I was trying to think what I could do for the women’s march. I wanted to do something more than just show up. Since the core of the planning was in DC and New York, I wouldn’t be able to work directly for the march. What can I do myself? can I make this amazing sign? can I wear something or not wear something? what statement can I make visually? It can be just one picture that goes around the world and changes lives. Then I realized that as an LA girl I would be really cold in DC so I was probably not going to strip naked. I’d have to bring my coat, scarf, gloves and hat! That’s when it hit me. I could knit my own hat. I could protest with my own hands.”
Krista was filled with inspiration and passion. As an amateur knitter, she realized if she could knit a hat, then anyone could.
“I wanted cat ears because if you really want to stand out then you need a unique silhouette. You could change the colour and the pattern but that doesn’t catch peoples eye the same way changing the silhouette does. That’s an immediate statement. Surprisingly, cat ears are even easier to make than a regular beanie. When the rectangular scarf fits around your head, the pointed edges naturally make cat ears. It was perfect!”
She then decided to transform her great idea into a movement, a sea of pink that would make a powerful mass statement. Pink was the colour of choice because it has long been associated with women, frivolity and the fragility of the feminine. She decided to subvert the meaning of pink and use it to represent power, resistance and solidarity.
Thanks to the pussyhat, Krista has become an icon in the DIY community. But she makes it clear that she didn’t do-it-herself. Without friends and collaborators Cat Coil, Jayna Zweiman and Aurora Lady, her idea wouldn’t have met mass scale. The success of the pussyhat was also because the creators didn’t ask for donations. Their biggest ask was if you could make a hat, direct action by using your own hands. Each garment we choose to wear, not only represents our self but also the person that made it, whether that be an underpaid woman or a fellow activist who made it for you.
Since the pussyhat went viral, brands like Missoni and H&M have done their own versions. Knockoff versions may not represent a relationship between two women acting for change but they ultimately further the message of women’s rights and empowerment.
“Who’s to say what is a real, original pussyhat? When someone else makes it versus when Missoni makes it? I think it’s up to people to decide. It’s not just about the hat but it’s about the story that goes along with it and the relationship that is built around it. So, I think that’s what makes a real pussy hat.”
The success of the pussyhat project has inspired Krista’s new book DIY Rules for a WTF World, launching in the UK in February 2018. Her book sets out to show people how they can bring their great ideas to fruition and create real world change.
“While I’d like to think I’m special for coming up with this iconic idea...people, women have great ideas all the time. I think what stops us is our own self-policing, a patriarchal voice in our heads that says ‘er, that’s never gonna work, people won’t like it, I don’t have time.’ This book is all my tips and tricks to extract that voice, so you feel safer in expressing yourself, trying ideas and seeing if they work.”
The pussyhat project is a testament to women using fashion to show solidarity with their politics and each other. Krista believes that the personal is political. By extracting the patriarchy from our minds, we can extract it from our culture and become more fearless for the future of change.
To make your very own pussyhat, check out
www.pussyhatproject.com/knit/
Krista’s debut book DIY Rules for a WTF World will be made available by Little Brown in all major UK bookshops from February 2018.
H&M apologises for ‘coolest monkey in the jungle’ hoodie modelled by black boy - adding to YSL beauty’s failure at diverse representation and Vogue’s “WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT RACE” headline with two white actresses on the cover, I ponder… when will we learn? Evening Standard
DVF appoints new chief design officer, Nathan Jenden VOGUE
Off-White launches more affordable collection - Much Appreciated Abloh BusinessofFashion
WHYWEWEARBLACK Gowns, “MeToo” and “Time’s Up” Pins at the Golden Globes - Fashion and Feminism i-D
Oprah is first black woman to receive Cecil B. DeMille Award JEZEBEL
Vogue’s New Suffragettes…but where are the women with disabilities? TheGuardian
Kanye & Solange faces of Helmut Lang new collection - I’m just happy Kanye is still alive and surviving Kardashian oblivion DAZED
Rose McGowan new docuseries on E! “Citizen Rose” EOnline
The multidisciplinary brand provokes society with brutal honesty in their new collection Race War
text Kara Kia // 11 December 2017
photo Nick Knight // ShowStudio
Fecal Matter is an anti-fashion and music brand based in Montréal, Canada, created by partners Hannah Rose and Steven Raj in 2015. After declaring their mutual hate in their final year of design school they decided to team up to make fashion interesting again. They believe that fashion lacks true individuality. Human clones share a giant closet of brown trench coats, white wedding dresses and collard button up shirts. Fecal matter, much like their name, wants to provoke society’s codes of normality and inspire people to think critically without being ashamed or afraid. Inspired by provocative image makers Leigh Bowery, Michele Lamy, Rei Kawakubo and Alexander McQueen, Steven and Hannah want Fecal Matter to express brutal honesty in fashion.
“The way the system and the industry is orchestrated, is against honesty. In an ad campaign, you’re presenting the model in the clothing, in a nice setting but that is not how the pieces are made, that’s not how the model is treated during the shoot, most of the time. Nobody is going to wear it in that setting. What we hope is just to show how far a person can go, to a point where it’s so brutal and honest and so literal that we don’t have to tip toe around things anymore.”
For Fecal Matter, fashion is as much of a political statement as it is an expression of personal style. Hannah grew up confused as to why people spent money to maintain the enslavement of underpaid labor. She refused to wear clothing lacking ethical integrity and taught herself to how sew, drape and make patterns in high school. While Steven distilled the tragedy of an abusive household into the dark fantasy that is Fecal Matter. Their brand is the grotesque truth in response to the beautiful lie that is the fashion system.
“We exist to push censorship. Even us who are fighting against this idea of censorship and being silent, not being able to talk about certain things because it’s a hush hush thing, nobody wants to write anything about it. It’s even challenging for us to talk about certain subjects because it’s almost like they are polarizing. it’s important to continue to push those boundaries and to not really give a fuck because as soon as you start giving a fuck then everything starts to crumble.”
Fecal Matter debuts collections as individual digestible pieces on Depop, offering a continuous stream of new clothing unrestricted by time and season. Their most recent SS18 collection Race War was presented on ShowStudio. They modified coded pieces like brown trench coats, white wedding dresses, black pumps, jeans and plaid button ups with pointed hoods in reference to the Klu Klux Klan. The presentation was a statement to classic wardrobe pieces being politicized tools to erase our individuality, enforce the status quo and perpetuate white supremacy.
“The goal with the Race War collection was to think critically about what the other person is going through. To think critically about what we’re going through and to think critically about our decisions. I think this whole divide between Race is just pushing people into not thinking critically anymore. We don’t even want to think about their feelings, when someone says white people have problems you don’t even want to think about that because you’re like oh, that doesn’t exist, their lives are perfect but that’s not true, everybody has problems and everybody’s problems are in a different degree. We all react to our problems the same, we all get distraught, get hurt and it’s painful so I think that’s really the morality behind that collection. I really do believe that we can all live in a cohesive way or at least try to understand each other. That’s the first step to healing. I think that we all have to heal, everyone at this point. The worst thing we would want for the human race is to continue the cycle of resentment, the cycle of hate, the cycle of basically holding onto the idea that we’re different.”
The anti-fashion movement has created new ways for artists to subvert the fashion establishment. But Fecal Matter believes there is still much left to be done to challenge normality and revive critical thought in fashion. Steven and Hannah want to push the boundaries further, beyond Kawakubo’s distorted female body, Bowery’s gender fluidity and McQueen’s depictions of the grotesque. Fecal Matter wants to create clothing that represent ideas of resistance and respond to structural issues in society. The morale behind their brand bridges the gap between fashion, fearlessness and social change.
“We want people to acknowledge that there are so many different options of what you can do as a creator, what you can do in fashion and aesthetics… but how is it that there is so few options of what you can actually say? and how you can say it? Censorship is in a conversation you had with your mom at 12, a conversation you had with your friends at 6, we were all censored from a young age where you’re afraid to say what’s on your mind because there’s a lot of shame in human thought. We want to enable people to think without being afraid. To embrace their individuality despite the pressure to fit in, despite the fear of being targeted for hate or what your family or friends might think. ”
We speak to Elisabeth Krohn, editor of Sabat and two converts to the craft to get in touch with our inner witch.
text by Kara Kia // 30 October 2017
Don’t you ever wish you could hop on a broomstick and just fly away into the stars? Who does’t love candles, crystals, tarot cards and incense? There is something so seductive and comforting about magic, this dark sparkling power that lives inside all of us. Magic has recently become cool and sexy thanks to Charmed, Buffy, The Craft and Harry Potter, but it wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, approximately four hundred years ago, magic and witchcraft was treated very seriously.
If you were born with freckles, moles or had sex before marriage, you could be accused of making a deal with the devil. Even still in many cultures, like Nigeria and Cuba, witchcraft is very real and feared by many. In other places like London, California and Canada, the craft is experiencing a renaissance moment. Women are reclaiming their dark femininity by meeting in the woods to drink wine, sing and invoke the goddesses under the cycles of the moon. Social media is bringing the craft into the digital age and witches are more visible and globally connected than ever before.
We spoke to Elisabeth Krohn, the founder of Sabat magazine for witches. Sabat is building an online community with the #witchesofinstagram and taking orders from every inch of the globe. Elisabeth shares that a lot of feminism has become a bit surface and superficial, where witchcraft goes a bit deeper. It not only explores femininity but also dark femininity and women today are really interested in that.
“Women now have this space to explore and get down and dirty with femininity and feminine archetypes, that are not necessarily just positive or good or kind or healthy and just to explore everything. I think witchcraft is a good lens to do that through. Many women involved in feminism have turned away from spirituality because so many of the dominating religions are patriarchal systems so its liberating to not be spiritual and not be religious…
I think witchcraft is also a way to come back to a very feminine spirituality, that’s why it’s also very appealing. As a young woman today, when we have so many options, why would you put yourself in a position where your spiritual life is a part of this patriarchal system? Why would you submit yourself to that? I think it’s quite logical that women would look for something else.
The world situation is making people feel a little bit disempowered and that often makes you look to magic. It makes you look to things that are maybe irrational or intuitive or not as easily explained because you don’t trust the system or you don’t trust that Trump is going to take care of you. You kind of look to other ways of taking power and reclaiming power and I think that appeals to women and it also appeals to so many other groups like LGBTQ witchcraft.”
The more established covens are quite private but we managed to find a new moon meetup online for newcomers and converts. After calling the elements in the woods near Highgate Station, we got talking with some young witches in training to find out what draws them to the craft.
Clarissa, 28, is an ESL teacher for Korean children. She moved to London two years ago because her partner got his dream job teaching at UCL. Originally from Oakland, California, Clarissa was raised in an orthodox Baptist community. She grew up in the church, going once a week to see children and their parents getting into spirit, speaking tongues and crying for hours. This was her normal until she made friends outside the community and started questioning her spiritual autonomy. At 14, she decided to leave and started exploring the connection between femininity and the cycles of the moon. She finally found an all-female goddess group in California that became a sisterhood and support group. They would talk about the goddesses of different cultures, women’s issues on body image, menstruation, claiming your voice and your power in a man’s world. Now that she’s in London, she’s seeking something similar.
Clarissa is drawn to witchcraft as a feminist because it feels like an ancient and organic secretive thing that has existed through centuries, that has been passed on by word of mouth from woman to woman. People have tried to eliminate it forever and it’s continued on and she really likes that thought. The thought of being with women that have kept this tradition going for as long as it’s existed. She makes clear that the Wicca she speaks about is not the Wicca that was invented by British men in the 20th century, but the personal, nature based, cycle based herbal rituals that women have done in the forest for centuries. Clarissa likes that it doesn’t feel dogmatic and full of rules. Wicca feels like you can make rules that fit what feels right for you and that people can’t tell you how you should be doing things, because what feels right for you is what is right for you. That’s what compels her to keep trying to find her own thing that fits instead of settling for religious or spiritual groups that don’t fit with what she wants.
Sara, 18, works in Sales at a Call Centre. She’s originally from Jönköping, a small town southwest of Stockholm, Sweden. Her hometown was areligious, understanding Christianity more as a tradition than doctrine. She has long been exploring alternative religions but has more recently been particularly drawn to witchcraft. Even in Sara’s hometown, mothers and daughters are practicing the craft as a way to bond and explore femininity. She likes that you can make witchcraft your own, that it’s a bit different for everyone. Sara thinks it empowers young women because it makes her feel like power comes from within herself.
“I think there’s this feminism thing going on like yay! girl power! but in reality, there’s a lot of girls that think they don’t have any power when they walk on the streets at night. Like I’m all-alone, it’s not safe, I’m always a victim and I always have to be cautious. The whole protection spells, charms, makes you feel like you have some power over your fate, like I’m taking the power into my own hands.”
Balenciaga: Architect of Minimalism to Millennial Avant-Garde
Actress Alberta Tiburzi in envelope dress by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Harper’s Bazaar, 1967.
“Not even the Bible has taught me as much as Balenciaga,” proclaimed Hubert de Givenchy and Dior called him “The master of us all.”
On the 100th anniversary of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s very first fashion house, the V&A details the legacy of the eponymous brand, leaving much to the imagination about the enigmatic couturier whom only gave one interview the year before his death.
Balenciaga silk gazar dress and cape, 1961, made for Stanley Korshak department store Chicago, gift of Mrs George Connor from the Chicago History Museum.
Designs such as this evening dress and cape from 1961 show how striking Balenciaga’s work remained during his long career. Bold colours, abstract architectural shapes and the clever manipulation of fabric such as this stiff silk gazar are typical of Balenciaga. Their originality demonstartes why he has had such a lasting impact on fashion. - V&A
He was an experimental master of shape. He subverted traditional beauty of the feminine body and expanded its meaning to include the obscure. Balenciaga married the simplistic to the sublime and elevated fashion into a realm of sculptural art.
Balenciaga Spring 2013, final show under Creative Director Nicholas Ghesquière.
Despite Balenciaga the man remaining a recluse throughout his tenure, he is best understood through the themes of his work such as minimalism, shape and volume, perfectionism, innovation and experimentation. Nicholas Ghesquière certainly kept the house alive by referencing its classic heritage but new heir Demna Gvasalia has revived the relevancy of Balenciaga for fashion disciples of a new age.
Balenciaga Spring 2017, Creative Director Demna Gvasalia.
The original workings of the house can be viewed at Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London until February 2018
Pierpaolo Piccioli has shaped Valentino into one of the most elegant fashion houses this year. The F/W 2017 couture collection made a huge impression, not only for the casual elegance of the designs but the sophisticated use of colour. We often wonder, what is the future of fashion? A question answered by the innovation imparted on textile by technology. A simpler approach is the opening up of our post-punk wardrobes to the possibility of colour.
Advanced style speaks the language of colour. The most significant addition to fashion this year has been a renewed appreciation for the painterly palette, beyond period or theme. Nostalgia is getting old as heritage houses struggle for modernity while young talent takes the helm. Houses like Valentino, Sies Marjan and even The Row this NYFW were teetering on the idea that revolution begins with colour.
I would love to see more jewel tones this f/w season, paired with our favourite colour family – pastels and a primary colour thrown in for effect. Emerald, Teal, Indigo, Topaz – like a golden mustard yellow, Burgundy paired with Blush and Bright Pink or Pale Yellow and Aquamarine. There is a method to Valentino’s colour-theory and without asking the designer himself, I will try cracking the code of what makes these looks so striking.
Deep – Soft – Bright. A deep jewel tone, a soft pastel and a bright, vivid hue.
Look 1: The burgundy blouse creates a base where the bright pink coat and yellow ribbon can take centre stage and because there is no pastel in the look, it leaves space for a secondary jewel, an emerald green skirt, to compliment the burgundy before the look becomes too busy.
Look 2: Emerald Green or Teal is definitely a colour to add to your wardrobe this season as it compliments every skintone and adds richness to any ensemble.
Look 3: There is something about this Valentino pairing that seems hard to execute being equal parts understated and eclectic. Ah! It’s the primary colours in three different hues! The formula decoded! Red, yellow and blue: the trifecta of painterly colours in the deep (burgundy), the soft (pale yellow) and the bright (aquamarine). Doesn’t it work so well? This look offset by the earthy taupe vest is pure mastery of colour by Piccioli.
Look 4: Blush, Millenial Pink, Rose Quartz, whatever you call it, it has officially become the new neutral or the new black of the late noughties. Why not play up that pink in a range of hues? The dusty rose quartz (deep jewel) and the pale pink (soft pastel) that we have all grown so attached to, pared with a bright pink slouchy trouser that keeps this look casual, fresh and feminine without becoming too predictable.
Look 5: Raspberry in cascading raw silk. Another rich hue that is perfect for the season.
Look 6&7: A sheer look that I don’t see leaving us anytime soon. Micromesh and sheer silk, thanks to designer Molly Goddard, is here to stay but how exactly do we style it? Without looking like we’re giving it all away? We can both take notes from these monochromatic looks in light blue and crimson.
Look 8: Despite my ode to colour, if it’s black velvet in anything that resembles the secret sex society in Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – culty and minimal, I will gladly look away.
If you’ve been following my fangirling over Gucci since Michele’s debut collection in 2015 then you’re well aware that I have welcomed his fresh use of colour, fantasy and youthful romanticism season after season. What makes this year different is that Gucci has overexposed itself, like Icarus, flying too close to the sun and then spreading its wings far too thin.
Gucci has most recently hit the elusive peak of “coolness” within youth culture, which when achieved must be managed with a delicate balance between mainstream and counterculture. Rather than steadily maintaining this momentum, Gucci and its team of genius brand shapers decided to amp up the marketing with a fatal combination of Gucci memes, décor and an all-black 70’s dance hall campaign.
At first sight of Gucci memes I thought it was unnecessary, then they grew on me as memes usually do. If the brand is trying to say that the house is for the Instagram generation then it definitely hit the mark. Although I thought it was a bit of an easy, cheap and obvious marketing grab to get the attention of “Generation Next”. Perhaps it would have been more attractive if the memes were smarter and unintentional as to speak to the renaissance cool of Gucci’s new era but instead it spoke to a puerile demographic that has come to embody the brand.
Gucci décor. All I can say is why? Investors maybe? I understand that when a brand becomes particularly successfully those powerful people behind the scenes urge it to branch off into new categories, like stationery or décor. I also get that in this new age of the 360° brand experience, marketers want to immerse their clientele in the brand lifestyle. But notice that I use the word brand instead of fashion house? Much like Kate Spade and Michael Kors is a brand. Gucci was once solely an elegant, as of recently, revolutionary fashion house. Décor made a lot more sense than memes and I admit, I was a tad bit excited. What I expected of goblets, decanters and folding screens in unique and unusual designs turned out to be white mugs, “modern” candles, “futuristic” chairs and gaudy pillows. I wouldn’t be surprised if they next came out with Gucci beauty to compete with KKW and Fenty.
The final nail in the coffin was a rumoured all-black 70’s dance hall campaign that I hoped was a bad dream would never come to fruition. A few months later, Gucci released a very niche targeted fashion video that prolonged the ever-exhausting appropriation versus appreciation debate. Diversity is fantastic and I’m glad that Gucci thought it necessary to give a spotlight to a demographic that was largely responsible for 1970’s cool. Diversity means an honest reflection of the variety of identity in our everyday life and any campaign that is ethnically homogenous irks my being. The fashion video was another cheap marketing ploy to capitalize on the cool of black culture and stay relevant. How beautiful and financially rewarding it would have been for the brand to use the same 70’s dance hall scene but integrate the diverse ethnicities and identities that made the era so nostalgic, the variety of people whom at the time couldn’t all get down in the same space? It’s almost as if Gucci is running out of ideas and relevancy-wise, running out of steam.
Suffering in Silence: own your voice, claim your space, tell your story
I recently finished binge watching the show Big Little Lies for the second time (highly recommend) whilst keeping up with my current obsession, The Handmaid’s Tale. These series share an acknowledgement of the silent female, domestic violence and the unspoken power of her untold story. There is a notion within binary society that femininity is equated to demure silence and masculinity is equated to brash opinion. Within the world of woman, many of us have adopted a tendency to suffer in silence. There is a shame attached to our bodies as sexual beings and a tradition of swallowing our opinion to avoid confrontation (getting beat). As I blossom into the woman I am becoming, I’m beginning to feel the double edged sword of femininity.
A few weeks ago, I was at the gym for my usual 1hr workout three times a week (a tremendous feat for introverts). There are no female trainers at my gym, never once was I concerned. There is one woman I see around occasionally who organizes light weights and leads a step class in the evening but doesn’t talk much. The usual days I go, there is an assigned instructed before noon, a stoic, reserved man we will call Tom and after noon, a talkative, younger man we will call Randy.
On this particular day I focused on legs, doing my usual squats with 10lb weights in front of the mirror to check my form. Randy suggested I try a heavier weight, 15lbs, I was up for the challenge. While I sat into my first squat, Randy proceeded to put his arms around my waist and squat with me in a way that his member brushed against my bottom. I felt violated, but my voice remained silent. I hadn’t had many opportunities to use my voice in that way. After the first rep, I told Randy, “I’m okay, I’m good for the next one” but I wasn’t okay, I was suffering in silence.
At the end of the workout I was upset with myself for not saying something, for allowing myself to be victimized. Not using my voice to claim my space. I didn’t want to return to the gym. I made excuses for myself for a few days before realizing that If I don’t go back, he won. Another silent woman that dies with her story untold. So I went back and hesitated to confront Randy. He would call out to me during my workout and I would pretend I didn't hear him, essentially disempowering myself. After finishing my workout and debating with myself for an hour about how to approach the topic non threateningly... I finally called out to Randy from across the gym “Can I talk to you outside?” *how I remember it, my tone was very Danielle Bregoli*
The conversation went something like this...
Me: Remember last week when I was working on legs, I was squatting and you came up behind me for support?
Randy: Yeah
Me: That made me uncomfortable
Randy: But that’s how we always do it. I was spotting you and I didn’t want you to fall.
Me: I didn’t ask you to spot me. When you are working intimately with women, you have to be mindful of these things. You don’t know my story, my experiences with men, you don’t know if I could have been raped and you have to be mindful of that.
Randy: If I didn’t spot you and you fell, It would be on me. That is how a trainer spots you. It’s how we normally do it.
Me: As your client, if I tell you I’m uncomfortable, you are not allowed to get defensive. The first thing you say is, “I am so sorry to make you uncomfortable, that was certainly not my intention.”
I may not have renewed my gym membership but I will never swallow my story and allow it to eat me up inside. So please ladies, own your voice, claim your space and tell your story.
The Lolita Witch is a Western hybrid of the Japanese sweet and gothic lolita styles mixed with spiritual uncertainty, adulting anxiety and lack of originality. The Japanese lolita is further inspired by British Victoriana and French Rococo.
Aged around 13 to 30; the youngers more lolita, the elders more witch. The palette is soft pink, white, red and black. The literature is Lolita by Nabkov, Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. The media is the Craft and the Love Witch. The artefacts are crystals, tarot and candles. The music is Lana Del Rey. The makeup is Milk, Glossier. The wardrobe is UNIF, OMIGHTY. The issues are Tumblr, Hello Kitty or Daddy. To understand the lolita witch, we must trace the meaning of the archetype lolita and that of witch. Precisely why young women would be attracted to these identities and the extent that this subculture is formed from contemporary political, social and economic trends.
The story of the Lolita tells us about age anxiety, childish naivety and an unwillingness to grow up or embrace the real world. The modern Lolita very much lives in a cyber reality as observed with the baby girls of instagram and the sad girls of tumblr. To remain a child forever in the safety of the Internet where you can become anything within a curated virtual existence is an ideal escape from the chaotic physical world. The Grand Poobah of every #instabaddie is the loathsome world of adulting. The Lolita either clings to the nostalgic 50’s-90’s or the anxious future of what’s next but shrinks from the unfiltered and unedited physical present. The adult world of patience and hard work paying off is denied for instant gratification, likes and an elusive Warholian fame.
The return of the Witch from peripheral cult to dominant culture signals a longing of secular women for a deeper, ‘edgier’ spiritual identity. Classical universal notions of religion and self are being transformed by contemporary specific experiences of spirituality and otherness. The power dynamic between the individual and society is being renegotiated. Cultural identity is no longer wholly imposed on the individual by the society but there is resistance from the individual, a claiming of agency to curate self by self i.e. the emergence of the ‘personal brand’.
Central to the witch’s cultural significance is the acceptance of her sexual self; she possesses her own body, as her own tool for claiming cultural space. The western witch responds to the veiled Muslim woman by expanding the discussion of the sacred and the profane body. We learn from our sexual-spiritual Other that irrespective of culture, the story of the female body remains the same. The female body as historical artefact is shrouded in myth, mysticism, spiritual and sexual power. The subculture of the witch rediscovers the ancient power of the contested female body.
Owning the dual-narrative of our bodies as neither sacred nor profane, but always both, expands feminist thought. We acknowledge the passé of cultural hegemony by releasing the shame carried with deviance, with accepting the Other, with co-existence. The deepest fear of the Self is this: “acceptance of the Other will lead to self-annihilation (rather than self-expansion.)”
In attempts to rediscover ideas of the divine feminine, we retreat to dying pagan cults, goddess movements, and return with fragmented, complex identities.
June 11, 2017
Hebdige, D. (1995), Subculture: The Meaning of Style.
